10 Most Hated Classic Doctor Who Episodes
9. The Underwater Menace
Doctor Who's first trip to the lost city of Atlantis is by far its worst.
While the DVD of the story was hated by infamous Doctor Who fan and record producer Ian Levine for a rushed reconstruction job on its missing episodes, the problems with it go deeper than a lack of care from BBC Worldwide.
Antagonist Professor Zaroff's declaration that "NOTHING IN ZE VORLD CAN STOP ME NOW!" became cultural shorthand for Doctor Who's terrible acting and hammy villains in '90s documentaries about the show.
Meanwhile, the dodgy makeup work on the fish people of Atlantis ticks off every single Doctor Who alien cliché: dodgy goggles, stick-on scales, and weird fins poking out of their faces. Furthermore, the Second Doctor's era is still slow to get off the runway, but there's early promise in the performances of Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines.
Despite the DVD being released in 2015, the story didn't see an uptick in appreciation during the 2020 poll. It maintained a similar position of 275 out of 295, compared to its 2014 position of 224 out of 241.